This morning my here in Phuket Thailand my husband noticed that due to recent rainfall some decaying tree branches were growing a brownish mushroom. “Can eat!” He insisted as we began gathering them.
I trust my husband on this, who has lived in Phuket most of his life and whose mother sold vegetables and gathered mushrooms for the local farmer’s markets. When it comes to gathering wild mushrooms myself, however, I am not very trusting in my skills. I can think of several times where I thought that a mushroom looked similar or identical to one I had helped gather before, only to have my husband tell me that “no no no! Cannot eat that one!” For example nearby where the supposedly good mushrooms were, I saw these:
It looks near identical to the other ones, except they were slightly lighter and larger. My husband insisted those ones were no good. Admittedly it was growing from a decomposing coconut tree log, while the other mushrooms were growing from decomposing rubber tree branches. But needless to say mushroom gathering is not something I would trust to “When I was a child I used to pick something that looked like this with my grandma two states over.” I wouldn’t trust a google images search either.
We picked through many tree branches full of the little mushrooms. They have a heady intoxicating fungus smell and we ended up with close to two cups of them. I enjoy harvesting things and believe it is one of the best times to make a connection with God.
So now what do we do with them? My husband cooked them over an open fire. They were wrapped in banana leaves and mixed with garlic, shallots, a few hot peppers and Thai fish sauce. A vegan substitute for fish sauce would be soy sauce. Then they were unwrapped and eaten with sticky rice.
They were very good and so far have seemed safe enough. But if I start seeing or talking to God, I’ll at least post about what he said to me…
I think Oregon has legalized the silly-cybins. Or maybe it’s Washington, my favorite place to be FROM
I once took a mushroom class with a pro, and we gathered a bunch. Later we made a lunch that was pretty much all mushrooms, about 4 kinds. I felt pretty weird after, I think it was just too many spores at once. I do love them in moderation, though, and you have got me craving a nice plate of fried mushrooms and some rice. When it rains here there is an abundance of white mushrooms that look so very edible, but from all I can find out, they are not. Mushrooms are tricky, I still hope to grow some on oak logs myself, also alder can grow them. Lastly, my Mimosa tree is dying, but sprouting a few nice shelf mushrooms at the base as the tree rots. I am told that the shelf mushroom will be a good medicine, and take on the qualities of the Mimosa tree, which I will miss as it is a lovely tree that attracts bees. So much to know. I also take mushrooms as a helpful analogy to our resisting the cabal, as we do tend to grow underground with little fanfare and then suddenly sprout up everywhere when conditions are right.